Mahdi is taking notes but looks fairly unperturbed. 

"And is Leareth in fact going to invade while you're not there or are they just assuming that because they are assuming he kidnapped you?"

"I don't know!" Vanyel brings both hands to his forehead again. "...Hellfires. I told him I was in another world. Because I'm a goddamned idiot - I figured he couldn't get to me, here, but that's not even the point..." 

:Van had a dream with him a few nights ago: Yfandes explains. :Van, I don't think it was crazy of you to say that, in expectation. But we should check he's not acting on it in that way: 

"How?" 

:You can scry for him with the crystal ball?: Yfandes points out, very patiently. 

"Oh. Right." He feels even stupider now. 

"- if we need to leave tomorrow -"

"I would be going without having asked Abadar whether he can get me spells there. We could dump a lot of money on someone and ask them to try to get us back if we don't make it back on our own but it's not great."

"How fast can you get word from Abadar."

"I could go to Axis tomorrow and submit a petition at the church in Aktun. I have no idea how long it'd take them to get back to me."

"You could go to Sothis and try to get a petition to the pharaoh. Might be faster."

"Maybe, yeah. Doesn't burn Plane Shifts, anyways. - this should wait on learning what Leareth is up to."

"Right." Vanyel drags himself to his feet and heads for the crystal ball again. Focuses on the spell, searches for Leareth. 

The spell - searches, like last time, but it seems harder to get to resolve, and ultimately it goes blurry and then black.

Weird. 

Vanyel turns back to the others. "It didn't work? I'm pretty confused, he's definitely also in my world - are there other things that can make scrying not work?" 

" Yeah, anyone stands some chance of throwing one off and people who are well-shielded or strong-willed do much better, and it'll get worse over consecutive uses of the crystal ball. We can try again the next day - of course, I guess the worry is that if he's planning an invasion we'll have a day's less warning tomorrow - Yfandes could give it a try?"

:I guess I'd fit in just the room if you teleported me straight in - Gating me would be hard, the doorways aren't big enough. It'd be pretty claustrophobic although I could cope for a bit. Er, does it actually help though, or is the crystal ball already run down for the day?: 

"It runs down gradually. It'll be like five percent less likely for you than for Vanyel but it's still worth trying."

:Sure. Does it make the odds worse that I haven't actually had the dream or talked to him myself, just seen Van's memories of it?: 

"It probably makes them somewhat worse, yeah. Not so bad that it's not worth trying, not with this crystal ball, but greater familiarity is one of the things that helps the spell work."

:I'll give it a try, then, if you can teleport me down for a bit: 

This will require a refill from Vanyel but then he can do it.

Vanyel supplies a refill, and then there's a Yfandes taking up an awkward amount of space in the room, and she noses up to the crystal ball and, with a bit of prompting from Vanyel, tries the scrying spell again. She hasn't technically met Leareth but she does have quite a lot of impressions of him via Vanyel, since they've debriefed after every single dream. 

The spell unfolds and tugs her along and then - resolves just fine, showing Leareth.